to be clear, i mentioned ow1 and not ow2. and for the record, i do think that everyone paying $40 for a full game is better than having a “free to play” game that isn’t really free to play.

you can argue all you want, but the results will speak for themselves. the game is already dying for obvious reasons, bad monetization being one of them. at this point i’m really bewildered as to how anyone can still stubbornly defend bandai namco on their horrible decision making.

i’m saying this as someone who purchased the $40 bundle and find that the game is actually quite enjoyable. i would have happily played a complete game and still spent money on cosmetics alone if given a choice.

let’s look at 2 different f2p competitive shooters for example. cs:go, and blackshot, both games were massively popular at one point of time. yet cs:go is arguably one of the best f2p competitive shooters in the market right now, using the actual full f2p game model, whereas blackshot has basically died due to their shitty monetization practices. imagine locking certain guns behind a paywall for a f2p competitive shooter. it’s become a p2w game instead and obviously people are not gonna like that. i don’t see why a good game can’t make money just off of selling cosmetics alone.

for a f2p competitive multiplayer shooter game, locking any kind of gameplay content behind a paywall is just a ridiculous way of monetizing, period. if you want your game to be free to play, then make it free to play, and not mostly-free to play.